After Li Chen finished presenting his evidence, his father, Li Yuntian, arranged for someone to take him straight home.
Gu Yue came with Leng Yaozhu that evening.
After hearing Li Chen recount the entire incident,
Gu Yue had thoroughly enjoyed the gossip.
The Silver Dragon King was once again shocked by just how fierce and filthy humanity's infighting was, and her determination to wipe out humanity grew even firmer.
Seeing Gu Yue leaning against the sofa with a bag of chips, happily watching the live broadcast on television, Li Chen got up and returned to his room.
He examined his inner state.
At that moment,
with Long Xiaoyao and Ye Zhaolu's Reincarnation and Renewal of Fate mission perfectly completed,
the Soul Power inside Li Chen had soared straight to rank 39. All he needed was a Soul Ring to advance to Soul Ancestor.
Moreover,
the Soul Power rewarded this time should amount to more than just rank 41.
Li Chen looked at himself in the mirror, grinning from ear to ear.
After all, just two months ago, he had only been rank 31.
Jumping straight from Soul Elder to Soul Ancestor in two months-this cultivation speed really was far faster than dutifully grinding levels!
Not only that,
Li Chen took a look.
The cooldown of his Tree of Sorrow Martial Soul's third Soul Skill, [Reincarnation and Renewal of Fate], had dropped straight from one year to one month.
In other words,
one month later,
he could begin the next Reincarnation and Renewal of Fate!
Aside from that,
Li Chen opened the Marriage Fate Shop. His Marriage Fate Coins now totaled a whopping 1,500!
He could exchange them for some new items, such as the Nine-Tail Memory Manifestation Radar, as well as some of Tushan's spells.
Still, Li Chen planned to save them for now.
For one thing, he already had the Dream Memory Hammer, so there was little need to exchange them for things like a Red Thread Immortal's Heavenly Book or memory manifestation spells.
He might as well keep saving until he had two or three thousand, then exchange them for supreme treasures like Void Tears or Pure Yang Flame.
"Mmm. Not a bad haul this time."
Li Chen walked out of his room and started fiddling with his soul communicator.
Ya Li was holding a press conference, tearfully apologizing to the public in person.
Her statement was much the same as what Li Chen had said, attributing all the previous actions to Cai Yue'er personally and stating that Cai Yue'er had acted on her own authority, leading to this tragedy.
"We of Shrek are willing to cover all losses suffered by the victims of the West Mountain Tunnel incident and compensate their families. At the same time, Shrek will launch a thorough internal investigation."
"We will take this lesson deeply to heart and reflect profoundly on ourselves."
Hearing Ya Li's apology,
Gu Yue curled her lip beside him. "Who are they trying to fool? Shrek investigating itself-isn't that the same as no punishment at all?"
Li Chen feigned confusion. "Gu Yue... ah, my lord, you seem to really hate Shrek?"
"Hmph, why wouldn't I? We're with the Spirit Pagoda now. Besides, you and I are dragons. The harder these humans fight among themselves, the better. If you ask me, the Federation should just blow Shrek up."
Gu Yue spoke indignantly.
As the common sovereign of Soul Beasts, Gu Yue now had a fairly thorough understanding of human society.
She knew full well
that for Soul Beasts to rise, they first needed high-level combat power.
And Shrek represented the high-level combat power of human Soul Masters.
If the Federation could raze Shrek,
then she could take charge of the Spirit Pagoda, while Li Chen took charge of the Federation and the War God Temple.
When that time came... hehe, wouldn't all of human society be easy to hold in their grasp?
Gu Yue did not yet know
that the joke she had just made would prove prophetic. In the original story, Shrek really was blown out of existence by the Spirit Pagoda working with the Federation.
"Huh? Why do I feel like there's something off about you?"
Just then,
Gu Yue looked at Li Chen and suddenly spoke.
Then she put down the TV remote, bent closer to Li Chen, and suspiciously placed a hand against his chest.
"Ah, my lord, what are you doing?"
Gu Yue's gaze grew solemn as she carefully probed inside Li Chen with her own power. Then a look of surprise appeared on her face.
"That's not right. How has the dragon bloodline inside you evolved?!"
Gu Yue was stunned.
"Huh? W-what's going on, my lord?!"
Li Chen pretended to look just as surprised.
Gu Yue frowned. "Show me your dragon power."
"Oh."
Li Chen extended his hand. Sharp, pitch-black dragon scales emerged over his right hand, and a powerful presence of darkness origin instantly filled the room.
Fortunately, the seal Gu Yue had left inside Li Chen took effect, keeping this power confined to the room without letting it spread outside. Otherwise, Mingdu's detection arrays would immediately have discovered a dragon Soul Beast here!
"Gasp!"
Feeling this power, Gu Yue pressed her lips tightly together.
"How is this possible? Your bloodline really has evolved!"
"How the fuck can a dragon like you exist?!"
Gu Yue's brain nearly crashed.
After all, although dragons were the kings of Soul Beasts, they still followed the rules of Soul Beast bloodlines.
Without some special opportunity, a Soul Beast's bloodline level should have been locked in at birth, shouldn't it?!
Even those at the Dragon King level were no exception!
Yet now, the dragon bloodline inside Li Chen had actually begun evolving from its original Darkness Holy Dragon King state toward the Dark Dragon King!
It already possessed a very powerful force of darkness origin!
After all,
the Dark Dragon King was one of the Nine Great Dragon Kings under the Dragon God?!
A dragon like this should not exist at all!
"I dunno. My lord, just what's happening to me...?" Li Chen scratched his head, playing dumb.
"Let me sort this out."
Gu Yue bit the nail of her right hand, sinking into thought.
"Before this break, when you returned to Mingdu, your bloodline hadn't changed. I'm sure of that."
"That means you encountered something over the past few days that inadvertently stimulated your bloodline into evolving..."
"Holy crap!"
The more Gu Yue thought, the more bewildered she became.
What level of object or person could make a Dark Holy Dragon evolve toward the Dark Dragon King?
Could the Dragon God have come?
"Wait!"
Gu Yue suddenly remembered something.
She clapped her little hands and abruptly stood up.
"I remember now. The wanted notices for Long Xiaoyao and Ye Zhaolu were just lifted, and they're receiving treatment."
"The video of Ye Zhaolu's Martial Soul Reshaping Surgery circulating online shows that her Martial Soul is actually identical to a Soul Beast named Ye Xishui from ten thousand years ago."
Gu Yue declared with absolute conviction,
"I heard from my teacher that Long Xiaoyao and Ye Zhaolu said they're the reincarnations of that Evil Soul Master couple from ten thousand years ago."
"In other words, the two of them encountered some kind of miraculous power and were reincarnated."
"Could it be that because you came into contact with those two, some kind of power on them caused the bloodline inside you to evolve too?"
Gu Yue transformed into Holmes, frantically putting her world-shaking wisdom to work.
All one could say was that Gu Yue really had guessed right by sheer chance this time.
"But... why?"
Gu Yue paced back and forth. "No, how can people from ten thousand years ago still reincarnate?"
"Could coming into contact with these reincarnated people cause our dragon bloodlines to undergo atavism?"
"Wait, if that's the case, there should be other reincarnated people too, right? There's no reason it would only be those two."
Gu Yue abruptly stopped.
"I've decided! I need to look for them. If more reincarnated people appear later, I'll have to experiment and see whether they can stimulate atavism in the bloodlines of us dragon Soul Beasts."
Li Chen could not help laughing.
If Gu Yue wanted to search, she could go right ahead. It would be a perfect way to get this Silver Dragon King to help him.
"Ah, I wonder who the next reincarnated person will be?"
Li Chen gazed at the sky and wondered.